Obit in Cleveland Plain Dealer, 9/19/2012
Gates Mills -- Tinkham Veale liked to say, "Business is
business; isn't it fun?"
Veale, a leading industrialist, horseman and benefactor,
died Tuesday at Fair Elm Farm, his long-time estate in Gates Mills. He was 97.
Known as Tink or sometimes TV, he preached "corporate
partnerships" at Alco Standard, Sudbury and other conglomerates. He
persuaded hundreds of entrepreneurs to sell him their businesses, keep running
them but delegate the paperwork to the "shiny pants" at the central
office.
"He hired people and let them do their things,"
said Dan Harrington, president of HTV Industries in Pepper Pike, which Veale
chaired. The chairman once argued with Harrington about a decision, then said,
"I agree with you. I just wanted to see how firmly you believed it."
Jim Judelson, retired president of Gulf and Western, often
partnered with Veale in investments. Said Judelson, "He enjoyed life. We
used to bet who'd have the better year in their companies. We'd go out to dinner,
and the loser would pay."
At Veale's alma mater, Case Western Reserve University, his
Veale Foundation pledged $20 million in 2010 for the Tinkham Veale University
Center. He'd already backed the school's Veale Natatorium and its Veale
Convocation, Recreation and Athletic Center.
The foundation also supported the Veale Wellness and Aquatic
Center at Breckenridge Village in Willoughby and the Veale Youth
Entrepreneurship Forum at eight local private schools.
Veale raised many thoroughbreds in Gates Mills, Kentucky and
France. His Vital Force won more than $200,000 by age 4. He later owned Ellis
Race Course in Kentucky.
He was born in Topeka, Kansas. When he was 6, his engineer
father joined Eaton Corp. and moved the family nearby. The son starred in football
and basketball at Heights High School and Case Institute of Technology, despite
nearly dying in a car wreck that killed his brother.
With a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering, Veale
joined General Motors in Detroit in 1937, Avery Engineering in Cleveland in
1939, then briefly represented Cleveland's Reliance Electric in Detroit. In
1941, he joined Ohio Crankshaft here and married Harriett Ernst of the Ernst
and Young accounting family. She died in 1998.
From 1947 to 1951, Veale directed Crankshaft's Tocco Co. He
also spent four years as a councilman in Gates Mills and became president of
the suburb's historical society. In 1952, he served as a grand jury foreman for
Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas.
That year, Veale bought Ric-Wil in Barberton. Two years
later, he became president of Alco Oil and Chemical Corp. in Philadelphia.
In 1959, a heart attack led him to retire young, but not for
long. The next year, he teamed with his brother George and a Case classmate,
John T. Vaughan, to form V&V Companies of Cleveland and start buying small
manufacturers, mining companies and distributors. In 1965, V&V merged with
Alco to form Alco Standard Corp, based in Valley Forge, Pa.
Veale served as the new company's president and chairman
until 1971 and remained chairman until 1986. By 1983, Alco had more than $8
billion in yearly revenue. By 1987, it had some 175 businesses with 16,000
employees across the U.S. and Europe. True to his views about independence, he
seldom visited Alco headquarters.
Veale chaired many other businesses over the years,
including Sudbury Holdings in Beachwood.
His many awards from Case Western include its first Olympian
Award and a University Medal, the school's highest honor.
He belonged to the Chagrin Valley Hunt Club, Mayfield
Country, Union Club and more. He liked to toast to "friendship,
friendship, good old-fashioned friendship."
Tinkham Veale II
1914-2012
Survivors: Children, Harriett Leedy of St. Louis, Tinkham
Veale III of Villanova, Pa. and Helen Gelbach of Gates Mills, seven
grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.
Tinkham Veale III Age 70—75
(610) 687-3258
19085-1106
George W. Veale, Topeka, Kan. This history covers the first
half century of the statehood of Kansas and was prepared at the close of that
period. Of the men who were conspicuous figures in the making of the state's
history, comparatively few yet remain. One of those pioneers who have completed
a half century within the state is Col. George W. Veale, of Topeka, well known
to the people of Kansas through a long and useful identification with the
public affairs of the state, Colonel Veale was born on a farm about five miles
south of Washington, Daviess county, Indiana, May 20, 1833, and is the
descendant of one of the oldest of American families. In 1640, there came to
the colony at Jamestown, Va., three brothers, one of whom finally settled in
New Hampshire, where the family name became established as Viele. The second
brother settled in New Jersey, and his descendants adopted the surname of Vail.
The third brother settled in South Carolina and established that branch of the
family to which Colonel Veale belongs. James C. Veale, the father of Colonel
Veale, was born in South Carolina in 1787, the fourth in a family of five sons
and three daughters born to his parents, James C. and Lovina Veale. He received
a good education in South Carolina, and taught school in North Carolina and
Georgia prior to his removal to Indiana with his parents in 1806, or when he
was nineteen years of age. In 1809, he taught the first school ever taught in
Daviess county, Indiana, and continued to be thus engaged until the war of
1812, when he joined General Harrison in his campaign against Tecumseh. He
served under Captain Moderl and was wounded at the battle of Vincennes. He died
on the old homestead in Daviess county, Indiana, in 1858, still bearing the
ball he received in that engagement He was numbered among the early
abolitionists in Indiana, and was one of the most esteemed and honored pioneers
of Daviess county. He was a Whig in politics, though he voted for James K.
Polk, the Democratic candidate for the presidency in 1844. In 1813 he wedded
Eleanor Aikman, a native of Shepherdstown, in the Shenandoah valley of
Virginia, where she was born in 1792. She was reared in Virginia and there received
an excellent education. About 1811 or 1812, she accompanied her parents, James
Aikman and wife, to Daviess county, Indiana, where they located near a creek
still known as Aikman creek. During the war of 1812, both the Veale and Aikman
families were taken to Corner's Fort for protection while the fathers were with
General Harrison fighting the Indians and British. Both were farmer families
and both pioneers of Daviess county, Indiana. James C. and Eleanor (Aikman)
Veale began housekeeping on a farm five miles south of Washington, Daviess
county, Indiana and there became the parents of ten children, namely: William
T., John M., who lost his life at sea due to a wreck by storm, while en route
from New Orleans to Pensacola, Florida, in 1849; Sarah, James A., Julia, Mary
M., now Mrs. Fielding Johnson, of Los Angeles, Cal.; Elizabeth, Eleanor, who
died when eight years old; Anderson, who resides at the homestead in Indiana,
and Col. George W. Veale, of this review. Of these children but three are
living: Mary M., Anderson and Col. George W. (1911). The mother passed away in
1871; she was a member of the Presbyterian church. James C. Veale, the
grandfather of Colonel Veale, was a native of South Carolina and a patriot
under Sumter in the Revolutionary war. He removed his family to Daviess county,
Indiana in 1806, making the journey in wagons and accompanied by nine slaves.
He located near a creek that was named for him, and when Daviess county was
organized one of the townships received the name of Veale. He died on his
original homestead there about 1841, when ninety-three years of age, and was
survived by his wife until 1844, when she too passed away at the same place.
Col. George W. Veale grew to manhood in Indiana. He attended school about three
months each year until seventeen years of age, when he entered Wabash College
and was a student there two years. He then became a clerk in a dry goods store
at Evansville, Ind., and remained in that position from 1852 until 1857. On
Jan. 20, 1857, George W. Veale and Miss Nannie Johnson were united in marriage
in Evansville, Ind., and on March 29 following, Colonel Veale and his bride
left Evansville on the steamer "White Cloud" in company with the
family of the late Judge Crozier, of Leavenworth. On April 7, 1857, they
arrived at Quindaro, a historic free-state town near the Missouri river in what
was then Leavenworth county, but is now included in Wyandotte county. There
Colonel Veale engaged in merchandising and also began his career of public
usefulness which has continued for half a century. He served as the first
sheriff of the new county of Wyandotte and, under President Lincoln's first
call for volunteers he raised his first company at Quindaro in June, 1861, for
service in the Civil war. He was commissioned captain and still has in his
possession that commission, dated April 29, 1861, and signed by Charles
Robinson, governor. His company was assigned to the Fourth Kansas Volunteer
cavalry, and later he saw service as colonel of the Second Kansas Militia,
which served in the campaign against Price in his invasion of Kansas. At the
battle of the Blue, Colonel Veale and his men won distinction through their
valorous conduct in holding their position against superior numbers with
fearful loss. His whole military record is one of skill and bravery as a
soldier, and he has well maintained the family prestige for courage and
patriotism. After a brief residence at Quindaro, he established himself in the
dry goods business at Topeka, the firm being Hamilton & Co. In 1866, he was
appointed state agent for the sale of railroad lands, which position he held
three years. He was also tax commissioner for the Union Pacific railroad a
number of years and was one the incorporators of the Atchison, Topeka &
Santa Fe railroad. He organized the Topeka Bank and Savings Institution, which
is now the Bank of Topeka, and he built the Veale Block, one of the handsome
business blocks of Topeka. Colonel Veale has been an ardent and active
Republican all of his life. He was a member of the first legislature under the
Leavenworth constitution; served two terms in the state senate during 1867 and
1868, as the legislature met each year then; and served fourteen years in the
lower house of the state legislature, his services in the house beginning in
1871. In that same year he served as president of the State Fair Association.
He is a member of the Kansas State Historical Society and served as its
president in 1907-8. He is also a member of the Red Cross Association. He
joined the Masonic order in 1866 and took the degrees with the late Senator
Preston B. Plumb and Charles Columbia.
Mrs. Veale was born in Pike county, Indiana, in 1838, and
was reared there. She is the daughter of Col. Fielding Johnson, a pioneer of
Pike county and a veteran of the Black Hawk war. He was one of President
Lincoln's first appointees in Kansas, having been made agent for the Delaware
Indians, in which capacity he served until about the close of the war. He
became prominent in many ways during the war. He was the son of Thomas Johnson,
secretary to General Harrison and a member of the first constitutional
convention of Indiana, where he took a prominent part in the formation of that
state's constitution. Mrs. Veale is a first cousin of John W. Foster, the
famous American diplomat, whose wife is the niece of General McPherson,
commander of the Army of the Tennessee at the time of his death at the battle
of Atlanta. Mrs. Veale has been an able and a noble companion to her husband
during his long and active public career. Their former home, the site of which
is now occupied by the Auditorium, was one of the social centers of Topeka in
earlier years, and many distinguished people have been entertained there,
including Gen. U. S. Grant and his suite. To Mrs. Veale belongs the honor and
distinction of making and presenting to Captain Veale's company the first Union
state flag used by Kansas troops in the Civil war. On horseback she solicited
subscriptions for the material throughout Wyandotte county, and after receiving
the necessary amount gave a dinner at her home in honor of the company. To that
dinner she invited the wives, mothers, sisters and sweethearts of the company,
who vied with each other in making the flag. It was a beautiful emblem and with
the exception of the stars, which were placed on it by Col. Fielding Johnson,
it represented the loving handiwork of those noble and patriotic women.
To Colonel and Mrs. Veale were born three children, two of
whom grew to maturity, namely: George W. Veale, Jr., born in Quindaro, in 1858,
and educated in the Topeka public schools, at Washburn College and at the
Military Institute, Chester, Pa.; he is now proprietor of the U. V. Laundry in
Topeka; Walter J. Veale, born in Topeka, in 1866, was educated in Topeka and at
Notre Dame University, South Bend, Ind.; he is now in business in the City of
Mexico.
Colonel Veale is now retired from all active duties, but he
retains his former interest in public affairs and is thoroughly conversant with
all the issues of the day. In Topeka, where he has resided over fifty years, he
is esteemed as one of that city's most public-spirited citizens, one who in
action was ever honorable and in life upright, and his name will go down in
history supported with all the attributes of a well spent life and an honorable
career.
Pages 352-355 from volume III, part 1 of Kansas: a
cyclopedia of state history, embracing events, institutions, industries,
counties, cities, towns, prominent persons, etc. ... / with a supplementary
volume devoted to selected personal history and reminiscence. Standard Pub. Co.
Chicago : 1912. 3 v. in 4. : front., ill., ports.; 28 cm. Vols. I-II edited by
Frank W. Blackmar. Transcribed December 2002 by Carolyn Ward. This volume is
identified at the Kansas State Historical Society as microfilm LM195. It is a
two-part volume 3.
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